When Ardeshir destroyed the empire of the Parthians in the year 226 A.D. these two alphabets were in existence. The Eastern alphabet finally triumphed over the Western. It became the royal mode of writing, and as such was used on the coins. The letters in the manuscripts of the Pehlevi translation of the Avesta in the possession of the Parsees agree throughout with the characters on the legends of the coins of the Sassanids about the year 600 A.D.[111] The characters also, in which the text of the Avesta is written in the manuscripts of the Parsees, belong to the later East-Pehlevi alphabet, which, owing to the greater wealth of the old Bactrian alphabet in sounds, especially in vowels, possesses a greater number of letters.[112] The coincidence of the letters in the manuscripts of the Parsees with those on the coins of the later Sassanids, proves beyond contradiction that although the oldest existing manuscripts belong to the fourteenth century of our era,[113] they are nevertheless true copies of the characters in which the Avesta was written in the last century of the empire of the Sassanids. All that the Parsees of India now possess are some not very extensive remains of the revision of the sacred scriptures made in the reign of Shapur II. The existing part of the laws corresponds in the title, the divisions and their arrangements, with the twentieth book of the text (p. 52). It contains the rubrics for purification, for repelling and removing the evil spirits. The title is the Vendîdad, or, in the older form, the Vidaevodata, _i.e._ "given against the Daevas," or evil spirits. Obviously this book was regarded as the most important and valuable part of the law, and to this circumstance it owes its preservation. Besides this we have invocations and prayers, chiefly belonging to the liturgy. They form a considerable collection, known by the title of Yaçna, _i.e._ worship. The remainder of the 348 chapters was lost in the invasion of the Arabs into Iran, owing to their fanatical zeal for conversion.[114]